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Welcome to Tech News Today, I'm Tom Merritt --- I'm Sarah Lane --- I'm Iyaz Akhtar -- I'm Chad Johnson --- This is the show where we kick around the tech news of the day along with you and try to make sense of it all.

-San Francisco jury issued averdict today that the company broke copyright laws when it used Java APIs to design the system and when it copied 9 lines of code. Google was not found guilty of infringing by copying software documentation.- Jury could not reach decision on whether Google had a valid "fair use" defense-Google has asked for a mistrial based on the incomplete verdict, and that issue will be briefed later this week.- Judge Alsup has yet to rule whether APIs are in fact protectable by copyright- Tyler Ochoa, a professor of copyright law at Santa Clara University quoted by Ars Technica: "Other people will be deterred from using Java as the basis for some non-standard thing in the future. It could be the case that Oracle wins the battle and loses the war."- Wired quotes George Reese, Chief Technology Officer with cloud management services firm enStratus Networks, tells Wired Enterprise: “If APIs can be copy-protected, that would be incredibly destructive to the internet as a whole for so many different reasons,” Reese said. “But with respect to cloud, in particular, it would put any company that has implemented the Amazon APIs at risk unless they have some kind of agreement with Amazon on those APIs.”-now considering Oracle's allegations that Google has infringed two Java-related patents. witnesses will begin testifying tomorrow, possibly including a repeat show by Jonathan Schwartz, the ex-Sun CEO. The patent phase is expected to be concluded in as little as one week.

- Last week Dan Loeb of Third Point & 6% Yahoo shareholder claimed Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson lied about having a computer science college degree and demanded records of Yahoo's vetting process while hiring him, threatening further action if it didn't happen by today by noon ET- As promised Dan Loeb & Third Point issued a demand via statement today: “under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation Law to inspect books and records relating to the hiring of CEO Scott Thompson, the appointment of Patti Hart to the Yahoo! Board, and the selection of Board Members Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Jr., and Fred Amoroso.”- “Third Point believes that Yahoo! shareholders and employees will be best served if the Board accepts responsibility quickly for this latest debacle … We believe that this internal investigation by this Board must not be conducted behind a veil of secrecy and shareholders deserve total transparency.”- sources tell ATD Yahoo will focus on a board investigation — using an outside law firm, and headed by independent director Amoroso (one of board members Third Point wants rechecked)

- legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on CNBC: "It doesn't sound like an inadvertent error. If I thought as a director, if I thought that an officer had consistently misstated some fact to me, I think I'd probably do something about it. ... If you can't trust the people you're working with, you've got a problem."- Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt responded to Kara Swisher on Twitter: if I was him I would grudgingly resign for the good of the thousands of yahoo employees who can’t handle any more drama- Thompson did keep top staff in the loop on the unfolding drama, say sources, said he was limited in what he could say and blamed a “personal vendetta” by Loeb

- Digitimes reports Apple is "considering responding to the upcoming second-generation ultrabooks by launching a US$799 MacBook Air in the third quarter of 2012, according to sources from the upstream supply chain."

Apple HDTV- A source tells Cult of Mac that he's seen the Apple HDTV prototype- Looks like current gene Cinema Displays but bigger, comes with Siri and iSight for FaceTime calls- Cult of Mac: "Our source is well-placed and has provided us with great tips in the past. However, not all of them have panned out" but they had mockups made.

Xbox 720- One more rumor: a source tells IGN that Microsoft is currently manufacturing the next gen Xbox in Austin, Texas at Flextronics (current assembler of 360 and manufacturer of the original Xbox)- Prior to reaching the manufacturing stage, Flextronics created a new testing group separate from the rest of the company. This team was solely dedicated to comprehensive marketing, software, and hardware tests of the next Xbox.- prior to manufacture, a team was created separate to the rest of the company that was responsible for marketing, and testing of the software and hardware.- The most likely case here is that new manufactured hardware would be development kits,- Forbes source says next gen Xbox games are already being developed.

-Nielsen: March 2012 smartphones were in use by 50.4 percent of consumers in the country, with Android continuing its domination in the space, accounting for 48.5 percent of all smartphone handsets.Apple at 32%-women are edging out men a bit when it comes to smartphone usage in the U.S. 50.9 percent of females had smartphones, while among men it was 50.1 percent. Unsurprisingly, younger users are the most smartphone-savvy, with two out of three 25-34 year-olds using more advanced mobile handsets.-ComScore Mobile Metrix examines mobile media usage across both apps and mobile web browsing.-Google sites led as the top property on iOS, Android and RIM devices, reaching 96.9% of the U.S. mobile audience, followed by Facebook, Yahoo sites and Amazon sites. -4 out of every 5 mobile media minutes spent in apps. (app store, search, Facebook, and maps lead the way)-Facebook users engaged for over 7 hours via browser or app in March. Twitter saw 25.6 million mobile users, engaging for nearly 2 hours during the month (no 3rd party apps counted), Pinterest 1 hourOBVIOUS STATS ARE OBVIOUS- according to the latest study by thePew Internet & American Life Project. 70% of all cell phone owners in the U.S. and 86% of smartphone owners are "just in time" phone users.- use your cell phone to coordinate meetings, solve an unexpected problem, decide which restaurant to eat at, look up the score of a sporting event, check traffic, call help in an emergency situation or find information to help settle an argument?

AT&T announced they will start selling home automation and security services called "Digital Life"-Trials begin this summer in Dallas and Atlanta - will go nationwide after- ADT has 25% of the market and 23% of homes have a security system-technology comes from Xanboo, a company it bought in late 2010. Its central control panel can connect wirelessly with cameras, thermostats, appliance controls, lights and sensors for doors, windows, smoke and carbon monoxide. Through the panel, home owners can then control their home from their cellphones, tablets or PCs.-You will not have to have AT&T's Internet service for the system to work - works on Z-Wave-In the labs, developers are already working on ways of registering who’s approaching a home through bio-acoustical transmission (the detection of vibrations in the bones through sensors in a phone or wrist watch) and having the home automation system decide whether or not to automatically unlock the door or announce a guest.

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News Fuse

Hosts will read the news fuse items. Guests, please chime in.

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All Google Plus users will now be able to broadcast their hangouts because the "Hangouts on Air" function has officially launched. The feature was introduced last year, but was available on a limited basis. When you start a Hangout on Air, you'll be able to see how many viewers you have and an archived copy will be available on your YouTube channel.

A security hole in OS X Lion first spotted back in February finally got some attention. Cryptome published a post explaining how Filevault encryption passwords are stored in plain text and readable by anyone with root or admin access. Ars Technica reports the only workarounds are running periodic scripts to purge the debug lines which store the plain text passwords. Local FileVault users use FileVault2, which encrypts the entire boot volume instead of just individual home directories, thus preventing external attacks.

It's official - Microsoft is offering the Xbox 360 for $99 with a two year contract that requires you to pay $15 a month for Xbox Live. With that contract is an early termination fee that starts at $250 and will diminish each month. The whole thing is a pilot program and is available only at the 16 Microsoft Stores in the U.S.

Facebook kicked off its IPO roadshow in New York Monday, attracting hundreds of investors who lined up around the block as if it was Diablo III release day. CEO Mark Zuckerberg-- wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, likely hooded --arrived in a black SUV shortly before 1 PM in midtown Manhattan and proceeded to tout Silicon Valley's record $10 billion initial public offering.

According to a Consumer Reports survey, one out of every four Facebook users put fake information in their profiles due to fear of identity theft. 28% of Facebook users share their posts publicly and 13% never changed their privacy settings.

Remember the app Color? The 2nd version allows you to share silent videos on Facebook. Kind of 1920s cinema meets the future. Well now Verizon is bridging the gap. A new version of the Color app will come pre-installed on some Verizon phones and let you can record higher-quality videos and if you're on the Verizon LTE network, they can be talkies! If you're not on Verizon, you can see and hear other users' recordings, but you can't put sound in your own videos.

Bloomberg reports Apple offered compensation to Proview to settle their dispute over ownership of the iPad trademark in China. But it's not over. Roger Xie, a lawyer for Proview told Bloomberg "there is still a big gap between the two sides on the settlement amount.” The two companies are going through court-supervised mediation to try to resolve the dispute.

LG announced that it will sell TVs with Google TV included in the U.S. starting in the third week of May. Expansion to other parts of the world will depend on the success of the U.S. launch. Way back in December 2011, Eric Schmidt said that the majority of TVs would offer Google TV by the end of the summer - looks like they're getting there.

There's an official update to the GNU Image Manipulation Program otherwise known as GIMP. Version 2.8 is the fist stable update since 2008 and brings a single-window mode, but that's not the default mode - it's an option. GIMP 2.8 also brings nested layer group support. Right now, you can download the source code at GIMP's site, so you'll have to build it yourself.

Apple iOS 5.1.1 Released With iPad, iPhone Bug Fixes- five fixes:- prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks. It also - improves the reliability of using the camera's HDR option from the Lock Screen shortcut- better syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading Lists.- fixes bugs affecting AirPlay video playback - fixes glitch whereby the "Unable to purchase" alert would show up after successful purchases.- d/l on itunes, apple.com, or OTA if your idevice supports that

Re: your discussion about Microsoft’s decision to unbundle Media Center & DVD playback from Windows 8, I think I can clear up the confusion with all the Pack names etc. I think we can all agree that Microsoft does a horrible job at communicating things and that diagram they put on the blog post explaining how this worked was a horrible diagram, but this is what I think they meant.

Firstly: They’ve renamed “Windows Anytime Upgrade” (the feature you currently use to upgrade say Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional or Ultimate simply by paying and entering a new product key") to “Add Features To Windows 8”. So with that let’s explain the packs:

So, if you are on Windows 8 Pro and you open “Add Features to Windows 8”, you’ll have one choice: Media Center Pack.If you are on Windows 8 and you open “Add Features to Windows 8”, you’ll have two choices: Windows 8 Pro AND Windows 8 Pro with Media Center Pack.

The reason they’re giving you two choices when you upgrade from Windows 8 is so that instead of having to first upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, restart and then upgrade to the Media Center pack, they’re letting you do it all in one step. You also still have the choice to upgrade to plain Windows 8 Pro if you want the extra domain features, but don’t need DVD playback (most work machines).

I think that’s what the diagram means. I REALLY hope they stop using the term Windows 8 Pro Pack though, they need to say “Windows 8 Pro with Media Center Pack” to distinguish from the plain Windows 8 Pro upgrade, because just adding the word “Pack” doesn’t explain what they’re doing and confuses everyone.

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Hi TNT Crew.

I run a Blu-ray company out in NJ, and lately we've seen a lot of interest in our products through torrent sites. About 20,000 visitors to our site yesterday came from sites like Torrent-Damage and pretty much the entire gamut of download and p2p services. We just live with it. We know we can't stop it, but we do think that we can influence behavior from one of freeloading to something that is a bit more mutually beneficial.

So, anyway, we posted a note, and we think it's a pretty good etiquette suggestion. In sum, "If you like what you take, consider paying it forward." Write a review where paying customers might see it. Perhaps write a review or post to twitter or facebook. There is no shortage of real things that pirates can do that can help an independent label.

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